Can You Handle 'The Hatred'? Director Michael Kehoe Talks Details On His New Film In This Exclusive Interview

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You know you're a horror fan when you are counting down the days until Summer comes to an end. Why? Well, my creepy little dearies, that's when acclaimed writer/director Michael Kehoe's debut feature length horror film comes face-to-face with audiences, #TheHatred. Set to release just before fall, fans can finally get their filthy paws on The Hatred as soon as September 12, 2017 on both DVD and Blu-ray. Do you dare to experience The Hatred?

Check out the trailer for Michael Kehoe's debut horror feature, The Hatred below:

After watching the new trailer for your upcoming film The Hatred I immediately clicked over to IMDB to check out all the details on the film before we spoke. One of the first things I noticed was a relatively low budget of $800,000 but the trailer would allude to nothing short of a couple million dollars at least. How do you pull off a budget movie, let alone a budget horror movie that looks like nothing short of a million bucks?

"I try to surround myself with people who are smarter than me and really elevate themselves in the departments that they work in. I'm not a lighting guy but I know what I want it to look like."

While we're on the topic of the new trailer for The Hatred I wanted to inquire about one of my favorite scenes. While showing the trailer to a few non-horror fans to test it's appeal I noticed the scene with the child under the bed emitted the same reaction of shock, among those who would be typically uninterested viewers of horror films. Where did the creepy doppelgänger idea come from that has undoubtedly been a major factor in roping in new fans?

"That was inspired. I have twin boys; when they were five years old they would say to me, 'Daddy, look under the bed, look in the closet. Check the closet before we turn the lights out.' That stuck with me. Every time I come in I would say, 'I'm checking the closet and I'm looking under the bed!'"

Apart from putting your own delightfully creepy spin on something that encapsulated your fatherly duties, The Hatred looks to be quite riveting and oozing with an eerie sense of dread. Where else did you draw inspiration from when making this film?

"I never did horror before. I love Hitchcock and I love thrillers. I decided what I would do was I would stick to the path of Hitchcock because the anticipation of death is worse than death itself. If I could do that I could achieve something."

Looking at the cast there is a crowd pleasing array of iconic horror legends like Amanda Wyss (The ID, A Nightmare on Elm Street), David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London, Holliston), and Andrew Divoff (Wishmaster, Lost) but none of them appear to be one of the core, main characters. Was there a reason you cast the bigger names for the supporting roles?

"One of the things that I didn't want to do is I didn't want to cast a name within the four [main] girls. I wanted to find girls not looking like they were models but somewhat attractive but somewhat looking like the girl next door. That was my goal."

By the looks of your leading lady's acting resume she is very up and coming. Up to this point we haven't seen her in much but by the looks of it we're about to. How did up and coming actor Sarah Davenport land the star role as Regan?

"We read hundreds of hundreds of girls and when Sarah came in I sat with her. She was so natural and pure in the sense of her approach to the character. She wasn't acting, she was just being herself. I knew as soon as that ended I turned to the casting director and said, 'no matter what I'm going to fight for her, this is the girl.'"

Up to this point you had cast just about everyone sans one major character. There was Sarah Davenport cast as Regan along with Gabrielle Bourne playing Layan and Alisha Wainwright of Shadowhunters fame as Betaine. Who was the actor cast to play the final friend of the foursome, Samantha?

"The final girl that came in was Bayley Corman. Once again she had this purity, that was a part of it. After we cast her we find out she was Roger Corman's niece. I didn't know that. Her mother is Jennifer Runyon, I didn't know that either. We didn't look at it in the sense of saying we're going to hire So-and-so's daughter or someone's niece. Bayley just came in, she had this purity and she looked more sensitive than the other cast members and that's what I wanted."

It's almost seems as if the film was meant to be, huh?

"All these things fell into place and I'm thinking to myself, how the hell did this happen?"

So far, #Lionsgate has been doing a stupendous job keeping any spoilers or the synopsis of the film from leaking on the internet. Can you walk us through what the film is all about? Spoiler free of course.

"The story is about these four young college students and one of them, who is the Sarah Davenport character, had gotten a job with her old professor at the college and she's going to move back to her college town in the outskirts where he lives. He an his wife had purchased this house that had been in foreclosure many, many times and he calls her up and says, 'I'm going to accept you for this job working for me.' She's into it because he's an archaeologist. She decides to take a trip with her three friends to go there and settle in. He and his wife are leaving to go to a seminar and they have their little daughter that Sarah's character knew when she was going to college, but she was much younger. She says, 'yeah, we'll come up for the weekend and I'll watch your daughter and we'll stay there.' When they get there to the house they enjoy themselves but there is something. There's a malevolent force that's within the house."

The Hatred's debut is at this point only two months away. It has, in recent months, really been gaining momentum and attracting an audience. As you've previously mentioned, the film means treading new waters for you. What are you hoping to accomplish with the films September release?

"First and foremost the only thing I really want to do is entertain. I want people to walk out of there and say they had a great time. This film is not something that I'm trying to tell or give a message about. It's just pure entertainment."

I can say on behalf of myself, fans of both #indiefilm and the #horror genre as a whole, you have a loyal and anxious fan base awaiting. So, before you go need to know one last thing: What made you want to test the waters of the horror realm?

"One thing I love about the horror genre is it's kind of like 31 flavors."